FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

December 29, 2022

The MCV Education Fund to Lawmakers: “Protect our Montana Constitution”

New video addresses legislative threats to Montanans’ right to a “clean and healthful environment”

(HELENA, Mont.) – The Montana Conservation Voters Education Fund today launched a new multimedia campaign to push state legislators to protect the Montana Constitution.  

The campaign, titled “Protect our Montana Constitution,” is designed to activate Montanans to weigh in with their legislators to assure their right to a clean and healthful environment. The campaign includes a brief video spoofed off Schoolhouse Rock’s “I’m just a Bill,” available online HERE, as well as a take action opportunity for Montanans to directly email their legislators and ask them to protect the Montana Constitution HERE.

“Our founders developed a unique document that ensures all Montanans have a right to a clean and healthful environment and also a bunch of other neat stuff,” the video states. “The Montana Constitution even goes a step further with a provision to ensure the legislature sets aside funding to protect our public lands and clean water and clean air.”

For over 50 years, the Montana Constitution has protected our freedom to recreate on our public lands, preserved working lands for our farmers and ranchers and kept our families and children healthy. The unique constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment has stopped mining and drilling plans that would have caused severe and irreversible environmental damage. With a new legislature starting January 2, there are already proposed bills attacking and undermining the “clean and healthful environment” provision of the Montana Constitution. 

“The grandeur of Montana’s mountains and vastness of our rolling plains did not happen by accident,” said Whitney Tawney, the Executive Director of the MCV Education Fund. “Montana’s Constitution protects our public lands, air and water, but our rights are under attack. It’s up to us to protect the Montana Constitution and stand against any and all threats to our outdoor way of life.”